Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan
The Royal Bank of Scotland Personal loan shares a trend with many banks of not offering the best rates because they don't have to- enough people already have accounts and fail to shop around for them to get good business. Even the site is hard to use. So except for their graduate products, shop around among the online services and get a better deal.
Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan examples (correct at publication date, uninsured):
| |
Monthly Repayment |
APR |
| £3000 across 2 years |
£141.00 |
12.5% |
| £5000 across 5 years |
£104.58 |
9.7% |
| £10000 across 7 years |
N/A |
N/A |
|
So you're looking for a loan. You might be consolidating existing debts like credit cards or store cards, in which case your only real concern is the interest rate. But the Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan rates are by no means the most competitive (around 2% above what you could find elsewhere); furthermore you can only borrow between £2000 and £15,000, which is an unimpressive range.
But what if this is a holiday or home improvement loan- things where extras and flexibility might be more of an advantage, or you're borrowing a large sum? Even further advances secured on your home are fairly inflexible from RBOS and the product offers no benefit over a second mortgage (in which case stick with your existing mortgage lender). There are no flexible account options or payment holiday options and the "Loanguard" payment protection policy is nothing to write home about either. The point is, whilst some benefits offered by lenders may be immaterial or inappropriate to your needs; to offer no special deals is plain average.
At 8.1%, the lowest possible typical rate is still 0.2% higher than some other online lenders can offer for even very small borrowing amounts. To clarify- that's like a shop selling cornflakes in bulk amounts at a higher rate than individual portions. We even found the Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan calculator fiddly to use.
There's really no excuse- The Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan service is shared with other names like NatWest and Clydesdale so there's no shortage of potential customers. The only people who might get an advantage are graduates or persons requiring vocational training loans which attract relatively competitive rates.
In summary, the Royal Bank of Scotland Personal Loan is uninspiring, and too many banks are getting away with sitting on their laurels because their existing customers fail to shop around.